GIScience 2018 Opening Panel Discussion

In 2018, GIScience is being held for the first time in Australia, at RMIT in Melbourne. For millennia, the land around RMIT has been an important meeting place for Indigenous Australian peoples of the Kulin Nation, and GIScience 2018 respectfully acknowledges the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land. As GIScience delegates gather from around the world, the GIScience 2018 opening panel session situates the conference within the rich history and vibrant future of this place, its peoples and territory which we recognise as the unceded, ancestral and traditional lands of the Kulin Nation. Our distinguished panelists include knowledge custodians Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Di Kerr and Boon Wurrung Elder N’arweet Carolyn Briggs, academic and author Dr Olivia Guntarik, and Justin Zobel, computer scientist and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne. The conversation moderator is Professor Mark McMillan, Deputy Vice Chancellor Indigenous Education and Engagement at RMIT and a Wiradjuri man from Trangie, NSW. Join us in this continuing conversation, and Wominjeka (Welcome).

The organisers of GIScience 2018 pay respect to the Elders of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation, past, present and emerging.